Perhaps more fairly being targeted for slowing down creatively by 2001, there was still much to be loved on The Charlatans' Wonderland. YouTube doesn't have a decent A Man Needs To Be Told, so let's make do with Love Is The Key, shall we?

I’m not the guy you’ve seen from the I Get Wet album… I’m not that same person. I don’t just mean that in a philosophical or conceptual way. It’s not the same person at all.”

You might wonder at a committee which would have created such a two dimensional and annoying character, and it's hard to see that it makes much of a difference to people who liked the result. It does remind us of the question of what the hell the NME got so bloody excited over him for in the first place, though.

Naturally, Elton didn't say directly that Eminem's record label was backed into re-releasing the last album with some stuff that didn't really make the cut tucked into it, but Eminem turns out to have been busy elsewhere:

Elton John says he has been helping American rapper Eminen fight drug problems for more than a year.

Let's hope John can sort Eminem out in the next couple of months, or hapless Mathers fans will be shelling out for some sort of greatest hits package come next autumn.

Nadine was even turned down by Girl's Aloud's OWN record company, Polydor, and other labels in the same Universal business group.

Polydor had the first rights to sign any of the five ladies if they wanted to go solo.

A source said: "Nadine had meetings but none of the Universal labels wanted to take her on. She's tried to get a deal elsewhere but with no luck."

This seems a little odd; Nadine being a better singer than Cheryl Cole. Perhaps she's less keen on jumping through hoops? Or maybe she had her own ideas about what she wanted to do, which run contrary to the record company model (= push-up bra, short skirt; whack some shop-bought tune through a computer; promote on Loose Women and GM:TV. Repeat until fade.)

Oh, let's hope she's being difficult. But surely she must have the money to pay for a studio and self-release some stuff?

Still, Gordon seems pretty clear that failing to land a record deal is the end of the dream.

You're not meant to say you liked Pulp's We Love Life, you know. While certain publications are happy to laud each new Oasis release, Pulp's last collection was given a luke-warm, you-can-sit-in-the-kitchen-but-don't-let-the-master-catch-you reception. Perhaps Jarvis was being held to a higher standard than the Gallaghers. But how can you not celebrate a record that contained this, the magisterial Night That Minnie Timperley Died?

Moving into the second year of the decade, and the last album from The Red House Painters, Old Ramon. Some of the tracks from the album had been hanging about for a while, mind - this is Cruiser, performed live in Hultsfred (whatever happened to the Hultsfred Festival? It used to over-excite the British music press and Radio 1 every year, but you hardly hear it mentioned now. Did they axe it?) in 1997:

The last installment of the festive TV and radio guide, then. You're on your own from tomorrow:

7.00am Radio 1 - Chris Moyle's All Day BreakfastTwelve hours of Chris Moyles. Is there anything more designed to make you curse Marconi's name for inventing the radio?

Noon Radio 2 - Patrick KieltyOh, yes. There is.

7.00 Sky Arts 1 - The Roy Orbison StorySky Arts spends the day flipping between Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison programming. When Orbison died, David Gedge made a joke about how it was a shame because he'd always wanted to see a guide dog on stage. Turns out Gedge had just assumed only a blind man would wear such thick dark shades all the time. This anecdote doesn't appear in this programme.

8.00 Planet Rock - Nicky Horne's ChainSongs connected to each other. Not like a programme made from a Radcliffe & Maconie feature, then.

9.00 Radio 4 - Big In SamoaComedy play about a long-forgotten album being taken to people's hearts online.

9.00 BBC 4 - Guitar Heroes At The BBCTonight including New York Dolls and the Sabbath.

9.00 Dave - This Is Spinal TapI'm struggling to find anything today. Can you tell?

10.00 Dave Ja Vu - This Is Spinal TapReally, really struggling.

10.00 Radio 3 - Not The MessiahMonty Python inspired comic oratorio featuring all the living Pythons. Except Cleese. And some actual musicians.

10.50 BBC4 - The Faces: Sight And Sound In ConcertFor the best experience, place your speakers either side of your TV.

11.35 BBC4 - Guitar Heroes At The BBCAdmittedly, this will be repeated until the Lib Dems form a government, but is this the best time to debut a new collection? Features Santana and Knopfler. Oh, fair enough.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

"So sad to read that the New York State Senate voted down the Gay Marriage Bill. It saddens and sickens me that modern government and society has learned nothing from history but continue the vicious cycle of ignorance and intolerance whilst quoting and twisting from a bible that at its root, preaches love and understanding and equality for all.

"Shame on all those who judge others so harshly that they will rob them of their civil liberties. Shame on those who will attempt to strip others of their dignity and their right to walk among us as equals on this earth. Shame on those who teach our children to discriminate and hate.

"Love is love is love is love. And it is rare and divine. So let all of us attempt to preserve it... in any manner we can. And by all of us, I really do mean all of us. Because lord knows there's certainly not enough of it flowing around us in this life."

Hart had been working with Maddy Prior when the pair were approached by Ashley Hutchings, fresh from Fairport Convention, with a view to creating a new band. The original line-up, with Terry and Gay Woods, collapsed early on; the Woods were cut and replaced by Martin Carthy and Peter Knight.

This version of Steeleye Span enjoyed success on the folk circuit, but a further line-up change introduced a sound drawing more firmly on rock. Hart became, perhaps, the world's greatest electric Appalachian dulcimer player during this period.

The new mix worked well - the band did a stadium tour of the US and hooked up with Mike Batt. This collaboration led to the high-water mark for the band, the UK number five hit All Around My Hat, in 1975.

The band continued, but with diminishing success and in 1983 Hart quit. Beset by ill-health, he moved to the Canary Islands, where he worked as a writer and photographer.

Hart returned to Britain this year for treatment for lung cancer; this proved ultimately unsuccessful and he returned home to La Gomera last month. Hart, who was 61, is survived by his second wife, Conny, and two children.

Presumably the idea of going to a country where nobody knows or cares who they are is appealing, so they can spend a few months with people going "who are you?" instead of "no, seriously, what have you done with the actual Sugababes?".

Quite why they believe a nation that has a Beyonce would be in search of a Heidi Range isn't clear.

6.30 BBC1 - Top Of The PopsI'm not entirely clear how this is different from the Christmas Day one. Perhaps Fearne will wear a different pair of shoes.

8.00 ITV2 - Fearne And Alesha DixonChallenging documentary as Fearne chooses between "fabulous" and "brilliant" and "amazing" to describe Alesha's life

8.00 Sky One - All Star Don't Forget The LyricsTwo - count 'em - slices of the programme which makes the last round of Buzzcocks look like Gascoigne-era University Challenge

8.00 Bio - Bryan FerryOddly, the Biography channel has chosen to spend the day playing concert films instead. Much of the day is Buble-stuff, but it picks up a little towards the end of New Year's Eve

8.50 Standing In A Street In Eastbourne Looking Through A Cardboard Box - Toploader pretend they're on television

9.00 ITV3 - Celebrating The CarpentersRichard Carpenter forced at gunpoint to pretend insipid readings by lesser, current acts are in some way a tribute to the work of his late sister

9.00 Bio - Amy Winehouse LiveFrom when she did the sort of thing that she was originally famous for

10.00 Bio - Franz FerdinandSurprising choice for Bio's day o'gigs; perhaps they've lost their Bloc Party tape10.00 ITV3 - An Audience With Lionel RichieClose-ups of Ronnie Corbett and the Anglia weathergirl as Richie builds to Dancing On The Ceiling

10.50 Five - The Cheryl Cole Factor"How quickly can we gloss over the assault, do you reckon?"

11.00 BBC2 - Jool's Annual HootenannyAs inevitable as a new year's day hangover, the big question remains: when did this change from feeling like a bit of festive fun into something more akin to an office party thrown by WOMAD and a bunch of Butlins redcoats? Dave Edmunds is on, but... oh, lord: Boy George, Lily Allen, Dizzee Rascal, Kasabian and Paolo Nutini.

Midnight Radio 3 - Late JunctionWhere the sort of people that Jools hopes watches his programme will be for New Year.

1.20am BBC2 - Best Of Glastonbury 2009This programme has been removed due to a copyright claim by The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Featuring classic interviews from the past two decades, new and unseen photos, and Noel Gallagher's track-by-track guide to 'Definitely Maybe', it's the ultimate guide to the band we sadly bid goodbye to in 2009.

Or are still going in 2010. Like the magazine you're trying to sell is claiming.

Expanding his remit from commenting on how many copies of Susan Boyle's album has sold, HMV Smartking Gennaro Castaldo has now taken to offering advice to The Pope. If Benedict thinks he is infallible, he should find out how infallible Gennaro is.

Castaldo considers that The Priests were outselling the Pope's own record this week:

But there is hope for The Pope, according to Gennaro Castaldo of HMV, who advises his Holiness to keep at it and perhaps appeal to the masses next time.

"This is The Priests' second album, and they have a pretty decent following which crosses over into the mainstream," he said.

"It makes an ideal Christmas gift for many people while The Pope's record, 'Alma Mater', on the other hand, is a bit of a one-off recording, and has quite specialist appeal."

The Pope is believed to have spluttered a bit at this, and was still muttering 'I've played the bloody Yankee Stadium' as he tumbled to the ground.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

BRMB wasn't supposed to be broadcasting the Queens Speech on Christmas Day; so when it turned up in the Sky News feed instead of the news, Tom Binns cut in to the broadcast and got back to playing the sort of low-demand music BRMB thrives on.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of complaints and a death threat, and so now Binns has been permanently binned by BRMB.

'We do not condone what he said in any way; whether said in jest or not. We are making contact with the small number of listeners who were offended by Tom’s comments and have complained to us to convey our apologies, and have also apologised on air.

'Tom will now not be featuring again on our radio stations.'

If there were only a small number of listeners who complained - and these were people who cared so much about the Queen's Speech they had chosen to listen to a station that it wasn't on - why have they sacked Tom?

Not only did Madonna's decision to take a child rather than supporting Mercy where she lived mean that a Malawian children's home lost a potential source of regular, ongoing support, but the linking of Madonna to the home's name has destroyed the other support the Kondanani home needs:

A source tells the [Daily Mirror], "We find it a day-to-day struggle to survive. Some days we don't even know if there will be enough food to feed the babies. Donors are not giving because they are under the impression Madonna paid us vast amounts of money."

Head of the orphanage, Annie Chikhwaza, adds: "I was never offered a penny. I did not expect any either."

Well, no, the direct handing over of cash might have led to some cynical suggestions that Madonna was buying a child. However, you do wonder if she couldn't have found a few quid in one of her many houses to help the other kids out, don't you?

The drummer with Avenged Sevenfold, The Rev, has died, the group have confirmed,

James Owen Sullivan was one of the founding members of the band, which came together in 1999. The Rev had been his high school nickname; this, coupled with the band's reference to Genesis often led to Avenged Sevenfold being confused with a Christian outfit in its early days. An appetite for heavy drug use and a songbook drawn from the sort of subject matter considered shocking for American metal soon put paid to that.

In 2004, the band signed with Warners, drawing the sort of investment required to push the band to the Hot Topic shoppers. Their last album, 2007's Avenged Sevenfold, shipped half a million copies in the US and went into the top ten.

Last month, the band started work on a new collection.

The Huntington Beach Police Department say that initial indications are that Sullivan died from natural causes; he was 28 and is survived by his wife.

Even more oddly, The Sun has started to use png images instead of text for the headlines on its webpages. Even if you choose to not have images loaded automatically, still they come in as image files. Perhaps this is part of the paywall lowering - if you want to discuss the headlines in the pub, in the way Gordon insists you do, you have to pay to print them out on pieces of card?

10.40am BBC2 - Who Do You Think You Are?Rory Bremner. He had a hit record as The Commentators. He counts.

God, the pickings are so, so slim this week.

11.05am Channel 4 - Lily Allen: Under The SkinUnless she changes her mind, wipes the tapes and pretends she never really meant to make the programme in the first place.

Noon Radio 1 - Arctic Monkeys LiveFrom August 2009, so you can almost hear the first little voice in the crowd saying 'I think maybe they've spread themselves too thinly...'

1.00 Radio 1 - The Chart Of The DecadeFor some reason, chopped into three daily chunks instead of being delivered in a single, magisterial, all-day, schedule sweeping gesture. If Radio 1 don't think it's worth a bit of fuss, why should we?

3.10 BBC2 - Ready Steady CookToyah Wilcox cooks up something against the clock. The Thunder In The Mountains calls for a Rennie half an hour later.

6.00 Radio 2 - The Class Of 2009Paul Gambaccini picks the best new artists of the year, and his choice should be enough to shut the Radio Centre's claims that Radio 2 is obsessed with young people and popularity right out the water.

8.00 BBC4 - Electric DreamsOpen University-tastic domestic electronics history 101 gets a rerun; tonight, it's the 1980s, which means there's a guest appearance from those members of Ultravox who don't get asked to make circus school documentaries for Radio 4.

10.20 Channel 4 - Alan Carr: Chatty Man SpecialSo, Channel 4 seem to have given up looking for a proper vehicle for Carr's talents and are just going to churn this out, over and over. Still, anything that spares us another series of Ding Dong. Spandau Ballet shuffle by, trying to avoid catching anyone's eyes.

10.50 BBC1 - Sting's Winter SongbookBilled merely to reassure you that you're better off hanging out until last orders.

11.30 BBC Radio 7 - Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable WorldStuart Lee and Richard Herring from 1992. In passing, it's worth noting that the Fist Of Fun wikipedia entry calls for a citation on the claim that the fake Rod Hull would believe the real Rod Hull would require gifts of jelly.

11.45 ITV2 - Ghosthunting With Louis Walsh And BoyzoneFrom, you know, before the very set-up of the programme started to sound like a bad joke

Monday, December 28, 2009

If you take the most extreme measure of how much unlicensed file sharing "costs" the UK music industry - the one-download-is-one-lost-sale model - it's £200million a year, according to the BPI.

So how much will the music industry's favoured measures to stop unlicensed filesharing cost to implement? Erm, £500million, says the Government.

The difference being, of course, that this is a real half a billion pounds, that we'll have to find, in order to fund a bunch of repressive security measures that will, at best, save a few private corporations less than half of the cost of that security.

How does that make sense?

Obviously, some sort of figures have to be made up to justify the move:

Impact assessments published alongside the Bill predict that the measures will generate £1.7 billion in extra sales for the film and music industries over the next ten years, as well as £350 million for the Government in extra VAT.

So we're paying half a billion now in order to let a few international companies eventually make that back? Possibly?

More worryingly, the report says that just the very first stage of the plans - the stiff warning letter - is going to wipe the equivalent of a town the size of Leeds off the web:

Ministers have not estimated the cost of the measures but say that the cost of the initial letter-writing campaign, estimated at an extra £1.40 per subscription, will lead to 40,000 households giving up their internet connections.

That's people who've not done anything wrong at all, the people who struggle to make ends meet, losing their web connections because the management of Sony Music are afraid that someone might be listening to Alicia Keys without paying. If Labour really want us to believe - in an election year - they're the party of social justice, can this legislation really go ahead?

Noon Channel 4 - 4Music Favourites: ShakiraNowhere near as much fun as she looked like she would be when she first appeared; it's almost as if the joy went out her work the moment she signed the sneakers contract

7.00 Radio 2 - Electric Proms: Shirley BasseyGoooooooooo-oldfinger

7.00 Radio 1 - Radio 1 Live: The Live Lounge TourJo Whiley collates all the times she's been genuinely amazed to hear a scruffy indie band do a cover of a pop song.

8.30 BBC1 - Celebrity MastermindThis is the one we've been waiting for: Stuart Maconie in the black chair. Not clear yet if his specialist subject will be the collected works of Amon Duul or the genesis of the Wigan pie shop.

9.00 E4 - Celebrity Big Brother Top 20 MomentsPerhaps we might finally find out just how Maggot from GLC qualified. Didn't they just leave him in the house in the end?

12.45am ITV2 - Ghosthunting with Scott MillsLooking for ghosts at Radio One. It does turn out that the wailing voice they could hear was actually Adrian Juste, who had been hiding in a cupboard ever since they dropped him from Saturdays.

“We’re in the middle of the biggest f***-ups in British history, the economy,” he continues, focusing his shrewishly handsome features on me and exasperatedly swinging his Converses up onto the coffee table. “The sheer shitness of our country ... Hunting affects 0.0001% of the population, and then you’ve got Cowell and some woman [Emily Thornberry MP] standing up and saying, ‘Can we have our PM’s assurances that he won’t let his government repeal the ban on hunting?’”

So, Otis believes that hunting is a very, very minor concern, and set against the scale of other challenges facing the nation, is a terrible waste of time?

So he’s glad that David Cameron, who has hunted in the past, recently said that a Conservative government would put the issue of repealing the law to a vote.

Ah, so it's a total waste of time to talk about hunting when it's talking about banning it, but a sensible priority if you're talking about repealing the ban?

Ferry seems to believe that he's some sort of martyr - convinced that the Government, for example, has had him thrown in jail because "embarrassed" at how popular hunting is. That would be the hunting which only affects "0.0001% of the population", of course.

Still, don't run away with the idea that Ferry Junior is a one-issue twit. He's also unpleasantly right-wing on other issues, too:

His mission now is “saving rural England”, he says. “We have such a magical country which is fading so quickly. I’m really not racist, but immigration is a huge issue for me ... I don’t understand how it works and hate the thought of being accused of depriving poor Mrs Punjab of her [right to come here] but we’re all packed onto this tiny island, and I genuinely believe we are maxed out. But no one is brave enough to say there are too many people in this country.”

Well, yes. I can think of one person who we'd all be better off without, at least.

I don't know how much money Bryan spent on his kid's education, but if I was Ferry senior, I'd be seeking a repayment:

“I’m not some kind of pervert,” he says. “Are you a pervert for watching a cheetah pulling down a gazelle? Are you a pervert for watching David Attenborough? Is David Attenborough a pervert?” He flips open his laptop and shows me a recent episode of the BBC’s Countryfile on hare coursing in which John Craven referred to the watching of hare coursing as a “perverse pleasure”. “No, John,” he shouts at the computer screen. “Do the f****** investigation properly!” He pauses. “I sent him the dictionary definition of ‘perversion’, but he hasn’t replied yet.”

Otis doesn't see the distinction between a cheetah killing an animal to eat and the rich son of a rock star killing an animal for sport.

You've got to love the idea of John Craven getting a letter from someone which asked him to read the definition of perversion. That's one for the plastic gloves and a call to the police department, isn't it?

You can’t ban something because you don’t think it needs to happen,” he says.

Eh?

There's one last chunk to digest before we move on:

He admired David Attenborough, “but then I saw him on Loose Women and I had to turn it off because he was flirting with these fat, ugly women. I thought, this is not the David Attenborough I want to be dreaming of . . .”

Gennaro Castaldo, a spokesman for the HMV record-store chain in the U.K., attributed Boyle's numerous TV appearances in Britain following her second-place finish on Talent , to the sales results. Fans have followed her career from the start, he observed, "so when the album comes out, quite a few of them will go out and buy the album, too."

Ah. Thanks for that... um... insight, Gennaro. The quote presumably ended "look, sorry, I've just taken the turkey roll out the oven so I really need to get back into the kitchen. Call me in the new year, okay?"

This used to be called Christmas Sunday, didn't it? And used to get a special illustration across the top of the Radio Times listings. Why aren't Fox News investigating that, eh? Doubtless it's been renamed to avoiding upsetting people, right?

7.00am 6Music - The Best Of George LambIt lasts three hours. How?

2.45 Radio 4 - Joan Armatrading's Favourite ChoirsDesperately close to commissioning using 'Youth Hosteling With Chris Eubank' as a template

8.00 Five - The Abba YearsPromises to include "the hugely successful spin-offs". Chess?

8.00 ITV3 - An Audience With Donny And MarieRadio Times calls his "a huge slice of nostalgia", thereby confusing something you can remember with something you used to like.

10.55 Film4 - BackbeatDoomed-to-sell-through-VHS but actually quite good Beatles biopic, focusing on the other one. Not Pete Best, no.

12.40am Channel 4 - Hits And Headlines: Christmas Number OnesHeadlines? At Christmas? It reminds me of the first time Murdoch made his staff go in on Christmas Day to produce papers for the 26th, and whoever was editing The Times that day, challenged by the BBC as to why they were there, muttered that the stock exchanges in the Far East were open - "and so maybe our stories will come from there." Because The Times is always leading on the Manilla stock exchange.